The present invention is related to a vehicle including a measuring device configured to measure the angular velocity of at least one pivotally mounted vehicle element.
It is believed that, in various operational situations, it may be advantageous to measure the angular velocity of at least one pivotally mounted vehicle element configured to be manually pivoted by a user not more than 360 degrees. Such pivotally mounted vehicle elements may include, for example, car doors, minivan lift gates, trunks, hoods, seats, tilt wheels, glove compartments, center bins, etc. The measured angular velocity information may then be, for example, stored on a storage unit situated within the vehicle, and later retrieved, for example, by a design engineer, who may use the information to obtain vital xe2x80x9cuse statisticsxe2x80x9d related to the automobile. These use statistics may include, for example, a number of times the mounted vehicle element is opened and/or closed, a peak angular velocity of the mounted vehicle element, an angular acceleration of the mounted vehicle element, etc. In this manner, the use statistics may help the design engineer better design various pivotally mounted vehicle elements.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle, including a vehicle body; at least one vehicle element pivotally mounted to the vehicle body, the vehicle element configured to pivot through an angle not more than 360 degrees; and a measuring arrangement configured to measure an angular velocity of the at least one vehicle element.
It is another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the at least one vehicle element includes at least one of a vehicle door, a lift-gate, a trunk, a hood, a seat-back, a tilt-wheel, and a glove compartment.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the measuring arrangement is configured to measure the angular velocity during at least one of an opening and a closing of the at least one vehicle element.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the measuring arrangement includes an angular velocity encoder electrically connected to a frequency converter, the angular velocity encoder providing a signal to the frequency converter in accordance with the angular velocity of the at least one vehicle element, the frequency converter generating an analog output in accordance with a characteristic of the signal.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the signal includes a pulse train.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the characteristic includes at least one of a pulse width and a period of the pulse train.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the measuring arrangement includes a piezoelectric gyroscope rate sensor configured to produce an analog output in accordance with the angular velocity of the at least one vehicle element.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, further including at least one vehicle system, in which the measuring arrangement is configured to communicate angular velocity information to the at least one vehicle system in accordance with the angular velocity of the at least one vehicle element.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the at least one vehicle system includes a storage unit configured to store at least a portion of the angular velocity information.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the storage unit includes at least one of a RAM, a hard disk, a flash memory, an EPROM, an EEPROM, and a mini-disk.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the at least one vehicle system further includes a peak detecting arrangement configured to detect a peak angular velocity of the angular velocity information.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the peak detecting arrangement is configured to communicate the peak angular velocity to the storage unit, the storage unit being configured to store the peak angular velocity.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the at least one vehicle system includes a user interface arrangement configured to communicate the portion of the angular velocity information to at least one external device.